Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams III, in 1911, in the state of Mississippi. His parents Cornelius and Edwina Williams also were the parents of Rose and Dakin. He began writing as a way to cope with his illness. He has earned two Pulitzer Prizes, a Tony Award for best play and three New York Drama Critics’ Circle awards for his works. Williams had not always had the best of life. Dealing with many aspects, his family life and social life have not always been in the driver’s seat. His southern style likings with good and bad relationships and who with led him to alcohol, death and suicide. Starting this all was when he moved to New Orleans and fell in love with it. Williams had always been infatuated with New Orleans. …show more content…
Carrying so much guilt or anger can apparently bring certain individuals to where they have no will to live. Just as Williams has been through a lot of incidents, his character Blanche has to. In her dialogue to Mitch, she explains her husband’s suicide. “Suddenly, in the middle of the dance the boy I had married broke away from me and ran out of the casino. A few moments later - a shot! I ran out - all did! - all ran and gathered about the terrible thing at the edge of the lake! I couldn't get near for the crowding. Then somebody caught my arm. "Don't go any closer! Come back! You don't want to see!" See? See what! Then I heard voices say - Allan! Allan! The Grey boy! He'd stuck the revolver into his mouth, and fired - so that the back of his head had been - blown away!” (Williams 1819) In certain ways, Blanche’s character conveys Williams’s life with the exception of who committed suicide. Williams took his own life after many times of being institutionalized. “…Tennessee took 'the long swim' in his suite at the Hotel Elysée in New York in 1983, overdosing on prescription drugs before choking, apparently, on the bottle cap…” (Hodgkinson) He was never the same after his lover died and could never kick the habit of drugs or …show more content…
From the play, Blanche was constantly but secretly drinking. She would always try not to bring to much attention to the fact and at times even lie about it. A scene between Mitch and her is a perfect example. “Mitch: I told you already I don’t want none of his liquor and I mean it. You ought to lay off his liquor. He says you have been lapping it up all summer like a wild cat! Blanche: What a fantastic statement! Fantastic of him to say it, fantastic of you to repeat it! I won’t descend to the level of such cheap accusations to answer them, even!” (Williams 1829) As Williams invented her need to hide and lie about this, he felt no need to hide his own alcoholism. “In fact, Williams struggled with depression throughout most of his life and lived with the constant fear that he would go insane as did his sister Rose. For much of this period, he battled addictions to prescription drugs and alcohol.” (Williams 2012) Growing up with an alcoholic father probably did not help this
Adversity can cause an individual to overcome their challenges and strengthen their identity, however, it can also have the opposite negative effect. Adversity can trigger an individual to lose their identity in their attempt to escape from their problems. In the play, A Streetcar Named Desire, by Tennessee Williams, Blanche DuBois is unable to face adversity, which leads her to lose her individual identity during her attempt to escape reality. Blanche had experienced numerous hardships such as the deaths of many family members and the loss of her young husband, Allan. Instead of overcoming these challenges and becoming stronger, Blanche tried to run away from them.
Tennessee Williams tells a story of a battle with fantasy and reality through his characters in A Streetcar Named Desire. When the reader is first introduced to the character of Blanche DuBois, she portrays herself as sincere and fragile. Blanche shows up at the house of her sister Stella and her husband Stanley’s home with the intent of staying at their home for a lengthy amount of time. Blanche tells Stella that she has lost Belle Reve, an ancestral home, after the death of many of their relatives and also mentions she has been given a leave of absence from her job as a school teacher because of her bad nerves, “I was so exhausted by all I’d been through my --- nerves broke. I was on the verge of --- lunacy, almost! So Mr. Graves – Mr. Graves
Tennessee Williams was born Thomas Lanier Williams in 1911. As a successful playwright, his career was greatly influenced by events in his life. He was noted for bringing the reader "a slice of his own life and the feel of southern culture", as his primary sources of inspiration were "the writers he grew up with, his family, and the South." The connection between his life and his work can be seen in several of his plays.
... ignorance; and this was the undeniable tragedy that caused her downfall in the end. Stanley was angry when Blanche told Stella that she did not like him, but he never gave her a chance. Stanley despised her from the beginning. Neither Stanley nor Mitch was intelligent enough to comprehend that not everything is black and white. They perceived her as a deceitful whore. Stella chose her violent husband over her sister. Also, Mitch could not overlook her mistakes. Mitch focused on her flaws which blinded him from seeing the beauty and love Blanche had to offer. Blanche wanted their love, but each of their individual flaws sunk her deeper into a hole. The people around Blanche were unwilling to change and develop an open-minded way of dealing with her situation. Blanche needed kindness and affection, but nobody was able to give it to her when she needed it the most.
Up until the moment she sees the doctor at the end of the play, she is convinced her former man, Shep Huntleigh, now a millionaire, is coming to get her and take her away to a life of stability and ease. As the doctor leads her away she says, “I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” This deluded calmness and happiness that Blanche has while being lead away to the insane asylum she still doesn’t know about, is suggestive that despite reality’s eventual and definite victory, fantasy is a strong and vital thing that is used by all individually in their own circumstances. Williams uses Blanche as one way to demonstrate and explore his points on the tragedy of reality versus
Tennessee Williams gives insight into three ordinary lives in his play, “A Streetcar Named Desire” which is set in the mid-1930’s in New Orleans. The main characters in the play are Blanche, Stanley, and Stella. All three of these characters suffer from personalities that differentiate each of them to great extremes. Because of these dramatic contrarieties in attitudes, there are mounting conflicts between the characters throughout the play. The principal conflict lies between Blanche and Stanley, due to their conflicting ideals of happiness and the way things “ought to be”.
Blanche once expected her life as a woman in her early thirties to be parallel to Stella’s: married with a roof over her head, friends, and a child on the way. However, like the naked light bulb, Blanche is pale and plain and will eventually burn-out. Her lies can only fuel her enjoyment until this paper lantern, which protects her lies, is ripped off. Immediately after Mitch confronts Blanche about how she refuses to go on dates with him during the daytime when it is light, “he tears the paper lantern off the light bulb” in order to see Blanche clear and plain (Williams 144; scene 9). Mitch rips off Blanche’s symbolic protective shield and she then begins to shed light on the truth behind her previous affairs with men. She can no longer hide behind her lies, as she has been exposed for the manipulative woman she really is. Nonetheless, while on her relentless search for unattainable perfection Blanche does not want to be seen in the light because she prefers to keep the truth about her rocky past hidden in the
After Blanche seduces the young man who came to collect money for the Evening Star, Williams includes the dialog, “It would be nice to keep [The
...anely raped her, he was thinking that she have already done it with many other men, and one more wouldn’t hurt, so he did it without hesitation. Last but not least, Blanche ended up in a mental institute. Blanche’s illusions had no place in the realistic world; she was too delicate, and this unforgiving world was not a good place for her to live in, so when her desired died, Blanche fell apart.
Blanche may seem prideful, but it is a facade, like the rest of her. In reality, she has a very low self esteem. “Stella: And admire her dress and tell her she’s looking wonderful. That’s important with Blanche. Her little weakness.” (Williams 484). This is why she is so worried about her age and her appearance. She feels that since she is soft she must also be attractive in order to have protection and mean something. “People don’t see you - men don’t - don’t even admit your existence unless they are making love to you. And you’ve got to have your existence admitted by someone if you are going to have someone’s protection. . . . You’ve got to be soft and attractive. And I - I’m fading now!” (Williams 515). Blanche is so afraid of not being attractive enough she has relied on lies and deception to create a fantasy to escape realism. If only she saw her worth and loved herself for who she was, she would not be desiring to be acknowledged by men or to create a fantasy. Lack of self-esteem is the hidden part of Blanche’s tragic
Relationships in A Streetcar Named Desire In many modern day relationships between a man and a woman, there is usually a controlling figure that is dominant over the other. It may be women over men, men over women, or in what the true definition of a marriage is an equal partnership. In the play A Streetcar Named Desire by Tennessee Williams, Stanley is clearly the more dominant figure over Stella.
Using dialogue, William’s establishes a power dynamic between Mitch and Blanche driven by Mitch’s dominance. After having discovered the truth behind Blanche’s past, Mitch confronts her about only wanting to meet with him in the
Our lives are consumed by the past. The past of what we once did, what we once accomplished, and what we once could call our own. As we look back on these past memories we seldom realize the impact these events have on our present lives. The loss of a past love mars are future relationships, the loss of our family influences the choices we make today, and the loss of our dignity can confuse the life we live in the present. These losses or deaths require healing from which you need to recover. The effects of not healing can cause devastation as apparent in the play A Streetcar Named Desire. The theme of A Streetcar Named Desire is death. We encounter this idea first with the death of Blanche and Stella's relationship as sisters. Blanche and Stella had a life together once in Bel Reve and when Stella decided to move on in her life and leave, Blanche never could forgive her. This apparent in the scene when Blanche first arrives in New Orleans and meets Stella at the bowling alley. Stella and Blanche sit down for a drink and we immediately see Blanche's animosity towards Stella. Blanche blames Stella for abandoning her at Bel Reve, leaving Blanche to handle the division of the estate after their parents die. As result of Stella's lack of support, we see Blanche become dependent on alcohol and lose her mental state. Blanche comes to be a a terrible reck through out the play as we learn of the details of her life at Bel Reve. Her loss of the entire estate and her struggle to get through an affair with a seventeen year old student. This baggage that Blanche carries on her shoulders nips at Stella through out eventually causing the demise of her relationship. As Blanche's visit goes on with Stella, the nips become too great and with the help of Stanley, Stella has Blanche committed to a mental hospital, thus symbolizing the death of the realtionship they once had. The next death we encounter in the film is the death of Stella and Stanley's marriage. Our first view of Stanley is of an eccentric man, but decent husband who cares deeply for his wife. However, as as Blanche's visit wears on, we come to see the true Stanley, violent and abusive.
A very important moral lesson that I gained from A Streetcar Named Desire is to always tell the truth. Telling lies ultimately got Blanche Dubois nowhere. She was lonelier than ever at the end of the play. She starts off lying intentionally. For example, she tells Stella at the beginning that the school superintendent, “suggested I take a leave of absence” from her job as a teacher (Williams 14). In reality, the principal fired her for having an affair with a student. It is suspected that she is lying and later our suspicions are confirmed. Even though a reason isn’t mentioned as to why she lies, it is probably to save herself grief from her sister or to possibly keep up her appearance. Towards the end, Blanche says she received a telegram from “an old admirer of mine... An old beau” who invited her to “A cruise of the Caribbean on a yacht” (Williams 152, 153). At this point, she even begins to believe her own lies. She has lied for so long to others and even to herself that she ultimately ends up believing them. When Tennessee Williams shows us through the sound of the polka music and the shadows on the wall what is going on in Blanche’s head, we are left to wonder if something is truly wrong. She even told Mitch that she didn’t lie in her ...
As the play progresses Williams intends for the audience to feel sympathy for Blanche. Close to the beginning of the play, Blanche sadly admitted that she had lost Belle Reve and was struggling with the property financially for years. When Blanche revealed this it explained why Blanche acted so anxious and suspiciously during her stay with her sister and helped the audience to sympathize with Blanche. Blanche pleaded to her sister, “Well, Stella--you're going to reproach me...but before you do--take into consideration--you left! I stayed and struggled!...I stayed at Belle Reve and tried to hold it together! I'm not meaning this in any reproachful way, but all the burden descended on my shoulders” (17) when she was angrily question about the loss. Towards the middle of the play, William intended for the audience to pity when Blanche finally revealed what led to her husband's tragic death. The death happened many years prior, but Blanche continued to hold onto the guilt